dealing with stress

Getting things done by “non-doing”!

Joerg Kuehn · Sep 28, 2022 · Leave a Comment

Last September, I started an online course on “psychological research for practicing therapists.” It was supposed to take me no more than 20 hours and teach me “skills and abilities of the social science researcher” as part of my journey towards becoming a Psychotherapist.

I quickly worked through the course materials and passed the test. But then I had to write an essay. When I submitted my essay at the beginning of November, I’d probably spent 30 hours on the course. I thought I was done. But I was clearly not done, and a substantial lesson was to be learned.

The essay grader was happy about the first part, but did not pass the second. I had to provide further depth and added resources to my suggested mock-research project. I was diligent. I spent at least another 20 hours studying, rewriting, and upgrading my essay. I submitted it again at the beginning of January and I thought that was certainly the end of it. But within a few weeks I got the grader’s feedback. Not passed! There were “still some issues with this proposal.”

I’ll spare you the details, but I was frantic. I spent another 20 hours not only revising, but writing, a completely new research proposal. I shared it with my supervisor but his feedback was not very positive..

Now, I was really on edge. I’d spent more than 60 hours on a course which was supposed to take me only 20 hours, and I still did not have a proposal that would get a passing grade. I had enough! I rather angrily put the proposal to the side in complete despair.

Please don’t let the good life pass you by

Joerg Kuehn · Jun 29, 2022 · Leave a Comment

It was one of these days when everything seemed to go wrong.

I had helped a client prepare for an important meeting with one of their major customers. Just before the meeting, we realised there was a substantial flaw in the presentation. It was so bad the meeting had to be cancelled and moved to the next day. An embarrassing and tricky situation. I dropped everything, frantically trying to understand the issue in our calculations. It was highly complex, but, by all means, we had to have an answer by the evening. Stress! Pressure! Anxiety!

While I was scrambling for solutions, an email popped in. And it pushed me over the edge. I had planned a large personal event in June. Suddenly, the hotel provider “had to sadly cancel all 22 room-bookings due to a technical error.” All other hotels were full due to a major sporting event. This meant we had to cancel an event for which guests from all over the world had made travel plans. A complete disaster.

Two Yogurts In A Fridge

Joerg Kuehn · May 25, 2022 · 2 Comments

Think of an incident when someone else’s behaviour was so appalling to you, that it triggered a stark emotional reaction. Maybe it was someone acting selfish, rude, greedy, arrogant, mean, inflexible, etc. Anything come to mind?

As part of my psychotherapy studies I came across an interesting psychological concept recently, which taught me an interesting lesson… revealed in two yogurt containers.

The lesson is all about shadows, which, according to Carl Jung, “exist as part of the unconscious mind and are composed of repressed ideas, weaknesses, desires, instincts, and shortcomings.”

This is the darker side of our nature we don’t really want to acknowledge. The shadows contain all the things that are unacceptable to society… and to our own personal morals and values. That’s why we don’t want to acknowledge them!

Is it a threat or a challenge to you?

Joerg Kuehn · Feb 22, 2022 · Leave a Comment

‘‘The test you will take today is designed to help us identify people who are exceptionally weak in their problem-solving reasoning abilities. Your performance on this test will not be scored like most normal tests, but rather will be classified as either above or below a predetermined cut-off score. If you score below that cut-off, this suggests that you are exceptionally weak —in other words, well below average in your problem-solving reasoning abilities. Thus, this test and the scoring method used are designed only to separate those who are especially weak from everyone else.”

This is how Dr. Chalabajev and her team introduced the test to participants of group 1 in their study about how people deal with performance anxiety. Group 2 was introduced differently, with the underlined words replaced as follows: weak by strong and below by above. The intention was to trigger fear in group 1 making participants feeling under threat, by being at risk of getting classified as “especially weak”, whereas help group 2 to identify the test as a challenge where they could potentially be identified as “especially strong” problem solvers with not much else to lose. In scientific terms group 1 was targeted to become “goal-avoidant” and group 2 “goal-approaching.”

The study results* are in my point of view mind boggling:

What if failure were not an option?

Joerg Kuehn · Jan 27, 2022 · Leave a Comment

Benjamin Zander is a conductor for the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra and a professor at the New England Conservatory of Music. For more than 25 years, he faced the same problem.

He noticed most of his new students had this nagging voice in their heads, saying things like, “Oh Lord, this guy must be really good. No way I can be as good as he is. And what if I’m not? What if I’m not very good at all? I’m not sure I can do this!…”

The result? Zander noticed many of them would not reach their top potential.

Why? It wasn’t a lack of effort. They worked frantically, but not from a good mental and emotional place. They stayed in a constant state of anxiety and fear over how their performances might be judged.

dealing with stress

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